Meta Platforms’ job cuts at its Reality Labs division this past week, where it let go about 10% of the unit, were the first of what could be another wave of layoffs at big tech companies this year. But that doesn’t mean big tech workforces are going to shrink much, if at all.

If history is any guide, future layoffs will only result in temporary reductions in the workforces of big tech companies before employee numbers start to grow again. That’s what has happened in the past couple of years, when Meta, Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft undertook mass layoffs in late 2022 and early 2023.